The encampments, which question the current capitalist system and income inequality that it has yielded, pride themselves on being leaderless. But that’s a serious chunk of change — where is it? Who controls it? Who should control it?

Wall Street’s little sibling in Albany’s Academy Park, completing its first week, has affiliated with a non-profit organization to handle the same problem. The Social Justice Center, located on Central Avenue in Townsend Park, became Occupy Albany’s “fiscal sponsor” at Tuesday night’s general assembly, according to SJC Executive Director Victorio Reyes.

The organization has a decades-long track record of providing “infrastructure” for grassroots organizations — meeting space, photocopying, et cetera. Reyes said that fiscal sponsorship means the SJC will open a bank account on behalf of the movement, depositing cash donations and making sure they are not wasted or spent fraudulently.

The SJC is a non-profit 501(c)-3 corporation, which means the loose bills and change people put in the protesters buckets — or even checks they cut — are tax deductible. The organization has a presence at the encampment: “This is my office now,” Reyes said of a table and two laptops under a tarp in Academy Park.

But they won’t have a say in how the funds are spent. Reyes explained each “working group” at the occupation has a daily budget of $25, but major purchases — like the generator now providing some electrical power to the encampment — must be approved by consensus of the nightly general assembly.

All seems to be copacetic between SJC and Occupy Albany. But then again, no one knows where this is going. So if the encampment dwindles in coming days, weeks or months, does the SJC get to keep the money?